Chris Watts infamously pleaded guilty to murdering his pregnant wife and their two young daughters
in August 2018. Since then, the story has garnered international attention. These are
the most bizarre things about the chilling case.
While, to the outside world, Chris and Shanann Watts appeared to have a perfect marriage,
their relationship suddenly changed in the weeks leading up to the murders, and Shanann
had grown suspicious of her husband. According to documents released by the Weld County District
Attorney's Office, on August 7, 2018, Shanann texted one of her friends,
"Chris told me last night he's scared to death about this third baby and he's happy with
just Bella and Celeste and doesn't want another baby. [...] He has changed. I don't know who
he is."
It would seem that Chris' behavior toward Shanann became noticeably different, as she
also told her friend via text,
"l told him last [night], I don't feel safe with him after what he said about the baby."
Tragically, less than a week later, Shanann’s sense was absolutely correct. Chris did the
unthinkable to his family, and attempted to cover up the crime by disposing of the bodies
at a remote oil field location owned by his employer. During an interview on 20/20, Shanann's
mother said that she was aware of the change in her son-in-law. Per ABC News,
"Her daughter had told her that the transformation happened over the course of 'a few weeks,
maybe a month.'"
Prior to this personality change, Chris was reportedly a model husband, as Shanann's mom
revealed,
"He never raised his hand, voice, never cursed at her."
Sadly, no one could know that Chris' transformation would turn deadly.
While Googling romance advice isn't necessarily bizarre, the fact that Chris Watts was searching
for dating tips while married to Shanann Watts is troubling. While Chris reportedly met Nichol
Kessinger, the coworker he would begin an affair with, in June 2018, the romance seemed
to have escalated quickly by the following month.
According to People, prosecutors in the case revealed that on July 25, Chris had Googled,
"When to say I love you for the first time in a new relationship."
Chris Googled this phrase less than three weeks before he murdered his wife, two daughters,
and unborn son. Obviously, with a Google search like this it appears that the married man
was moving quickly with Kessinger and was ready to take their relationship to the next
level. As noted by People:
"Prosecutors have cited Watts' desire for a fresh start with his mistress, co-worker
Nichol Kessinger, 30, as his motive in the killings."
While Chris Watts and his mistress, Nichol Kessinger, reportedly met in June 2018 at
work, it wasn't long before Kessinger was also turning to Google for romance advice.
In her only interview following Chris' arrest, Kessinger told The Denver Post,
"We had just met [...] I barely knew him."
However, court documents told a different story, as People reported,
"[Kessinger] spent 'over two hours' searching Google for wedding dresses just nine days
before Chris killed his wife and two daughters."
Of course, searching for wedding dresses isn't a crime by any means, but Kessinger's search
history suggested that she was incredibly serious about her relationship with Chris,
and was already thinking about a future with the man she'd allegedly only been dating for
approximately six weeks.
It's also alleged that Kessinger believed that Chris was single when they started dating.
As reported by The Denver Post,
"Watts said he was separated and at the end of divorce proceedings, [Kessinger] said."
However, Kessinger's search history told a slightly different story. Per People,
"On July 24, Kessinger Google-searched the phrase 'Man I'm having affair with says he
will leave his wife.'"
Her search suggested that she may have known that Chris was yet to split from Shanann,
and was hoping that he would leave his spouse to be with her.
In the digital age, it's difficult to conceal information, but Chris Watts found an unusual
way to store content he received from his mistress, Nichol Kessinger. Per the discovery
documents released by the Weld County District Attorney's Office,
"Watts had a 'secret calculator' application uploaded to his personal phone. This application
by all appearances is an operable calculator. When the user enters a secret passcode the
application reveals its true purpose, a concealed storage device for photographs, videos, contacts,
even a private browser."
Investigators discovered a plethora of hidden photos and messages in the app on Chris' phone,
and they noted in the discovery documents,
"I'm certain Watts communicated far more with Kessinger than is reflected in his phone data,
perhaps facilitated through the Secret Calculator application. It became apparent he was receiving
assorted [...] images of Kessinger [...] which he then stashed in that application to prevent
Shanann from ever seeing them."
Basically, it would appear that Chris was living a double life before he murdered his
wife and children.
When Shanann Watts was killed on August 13, 2018, she'd just returned from a business
trip in the early hours of the morning. Chris Watts had spent the weekend with their daughters,
Celeste and Bella, and according to him, they'd had a rather normal time together at home.
According to documents released by the Weld County District Attorney's Office,
"On Sunday, August 12, 2018, he took his girls to a birthday party [...] There was a mini
pool at the birthday party and his girls 'had an epic time.' They drove back home after
the party and he gave his girls a shower and put them to bed."
Chris also revealed to investigators that earlier in the morning, after watching some
television, he took the girls to Target to shop for a birthday gift, and when they got
home from running the errand, they ate leftover pizza for lunch.
By all accounts, Chris had spent a pretty regular weekend with his two daughters, and
there seemed to be no indication to his deviant plan just hours later. In hindsight, Chris’
calm behavior during these events was extremely chilling.
While Chris Watts initially denied murdering his pregnant wife and their children, it later
came out that he'd revealed to a coworker his plans to visit the remote oil field in
Frederick, Colorado, where his family’s bodies would later be found. According to
the official case documents, on Sunday, August 12, 2018, at around 5 p.m., Chris texted a
co-worker in reference to the oil field, and wrote,
"I'm gonna go straight out there from my house in the morning."
When the co-worker responded that they had also been planning to visit the site, Chris
joked,
"I can go out there though. No sense in both of us going out there lol."
By telling a co-worker that he'd be visiting the site early on that Monday morning to complete
some checks, many people believed that Chris may have premeditated his actions on that
fateful August day.
After Chris Watts pleaded guilty to first degree murder in November 2018, his parents
gave an interview to ABC11 defending their son. Chris' mother, Cindy Watts, said of her
son's marriage to Shanann Watts,
"It was a very hard relationship [...] It was a very hard relationship [with Shanann]
as far as I'm concerned. I couldn't do anything right."
Chris' parents also suggested that it was his marriage to Shanann that changed him.
His mom said,
"He was in sports from when he was five until 17 years old [...] There's not one person
you can talk to that will say anything about this kid. He was normal, he didn't have a
temper, he was just easy-going like his Dad. [...] He's not a monster."
Meanwhile, Chris' dad, Ronnie Watts, also defended his son to ABC11 and explained,
"It's hard for me to believe that he would hurt them girls no matter what [...] The story
he told me that night, I believed it: The way he looked at me, the way he was crying,
I believed it."
"If he did it all, I can live with it. If he didn't, I want him to fight for it."
Ronnie is referring to the initial story that Chris gave to the police, claiming that he
only killed Shanann after discovering that she'd murdered their two daughters. However,
this was, of course, later revealed to be untrue.
From prison, Chris Watts reportedly corresponded with author Cheryln Cadle in a series of letters,
phone calls, and meetings, the details of which she subsequently published in the 2019
book, Letters from Christopher: The Tragic Confessions of the Watts Family Murders. Speaking
with the Daily Mail, Cadle claimed that Chris had told her,
"If I had not met Nikki, I would never have killed my family. [...] All I could feel was
now I was free to be with Nikki. Feelings of my love for her was overcoming me. I felt
no remorse."
According to the author, Chris also revealed,
"The darkness inside of me had won, it was still in me, though, I thought maybe permanently.
I felt evil, swallowed up by this thing inside of me. I felt like I could kill anything and
be justified for doing it."
Of Chris' mistress, Cadle said,
"Christopher says he loved her like he has never loved anyone else before."
"And that's why I got so emotional right there."
Police investigating the Chris Watts murders discovered that he had looked up the lyrics
to the Metallica song, "Battery," per the Weld County District Attorney's Office's discovery
documents, shortly after he committed the horrific act. One of the reasons, then, that
some people speculated that Chris' mistress, Nichol Kessinger, might have allegedly been
involved in the murders was that she’d sent him a text soon after the killings had taken
place.
As author Cherlyn Cadle wrote in her book, Letters from Christopher: The Tragic Confessions
of the Watts Family Murders,
"After Christopher killed his family and drove away, Nikki texted him to look up the song
by Metallica band called 'Battery.' I challenge you to look up the full lyrics of this song.
I find it interesting that we should believe it's only a coincidence."
A few specific lines that are troubling include:
"Smashing through the boundaries, lunacy has found me / Cannot stop the battery / Pounding
out aggression, turns into obsession / Cannot kill the battery / Cannot kill the family,
battery is found in me."
On August 15, 2018, less than a week after his wife and daughters disappeared, Chris
Watts failed a polygraph test. Tammy Lee, an investigator in the case, conducted the
test, and as reported by The Tab,
"Chris Watts didn't just fail his polygraph test, he scored shockingly low."
"There's a reason you feel sick to your stomach. A lot of people hold stuff inside, it makes
you physically ill."
After failing the test, Chris confessed to a version of the truth, which included him
alleging that he'd only murdered his wife, Shanann Watts, after she supposedly smothered
their two daughters. According to iNews,
"He claimed that she had killed their two girls in response to his request [for a divorce],
and said he had killed her in anger after she did this. However, he later confessed
to strangling his wife during a confrontation over the revelations of his affair."
Presumably to save face after failing the polygraph test, Chris concocted a story about
what happened to his family, which painted him as somewhat of a victim in the proceedings.
However, it was later revealed that Chris killed Shanann first, and didn't murder their
daughters, Celeste and Bella, until he'd driven to the oil site where their bodies were found.
While Watts' mistress has maintained that she believed he was separated from his wife
when they met, police discovered a strange piece of information on Kessinger's mobile
[MOH-bull] phone. According to the discovery documents compiled by investigators, data
from Kessinger's phone showed that she'd Googled Shanann Watts' name on September 1, 2017,
almost a full year before she started an affair with Chris.
In an interview with CrimeOnline, Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke said,
"The dates to which you are referring — in 2017 where it appears she Googled or otherwise
searched Shanann — was data that came off her phone. [...] Nichol Kessinger told us
that she met and started the relationship with the defendant in 2018 [...] So where
that anomaly in the data comes from [...] I don't know the answer to it."
Indeed, the fact that Kessinger reportedly Googled Chris' wife's name in September 2017
seemingly contradicts her own version of events. As The Denver Post, with whom Kessinger gave
her only press interview, later reported,
"One day in the middle of June [2018], he walked into her office to introduce himself."
Per Kessinger's account to the outlet,
"Watts told her that he had two daughters and, after Kessinger asked, Watts said he
was separated and at the end of divorce proceedings, she said."
"This shocked me just as much as I think it shocked the rest of the world."
As well as Googling wedding dresses and the name of Chris Watts' wife, Kessinger also
searched online for Amber Frey, the infamous mistress in another murder case. Frey dated
Scott Peterson, who was married. Frey believed that Peterson was single when she met him.
Laci Peterson was eight months pregnant when she disappeared on Christmas Eve in 2002,
and it wasn't until April 2003 that the bodies of Laci and her unborn child were found. Per
the Chris Watts case's discovery documents,
"Kessinger searched the internet on topics related to Amber Frey [...] Her searches included
Frey's book deal, her net worth and 'did people hate Amber Frey.'"
These searches reportedly took place on August 18, 2018, three days after Chris confessed
to murdering his family.
Presumably, Kessinger may have been concerned about what the public perception would be
once it was revealed that she was the mistress of a convicted murderer. However, the fact
that she Googled Frey's net worth and book deal might also suggest that she may have
been hoping to capitalize on her situation. Of course, this is all speculation, and it
should be noted that Kessinger voluntarily spoke with police on August 15, the same day
that Chris was arrested. As Kessinger later told The Denver Post,
"I just wanted to help [...] With a pregnant woman and two children missing, I was going
to do anything that I could."
On February 18, 2019, Chris Watts sat down for a five-hour interview with the Frederick
Police Department, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, and the FBI, the audio of which
was released to the public. Chris made a number of telling revelations during the interview,
and he spoke about his former mistress, Nichol. As reported by Oxygen, Chris said,
"I'm not sure what you [Nichol] went through afterward, if you had like counseling, if
you're in a different state, if you had to leave everything behind."
When the investigators asked Chris if he was hoping to speak to Kessinger one day, he replied,
"Maybe once [...] just to say, I'm sorry this all happened."
However, Chris' attorney reportedly attempted to contact Kessinger on his behalf, but she
refused. During this same interview, Chris also emotionally suggested that if he hadn't
begun an affair, he might not have become dissatisfied with his marriage to Shanann
Watts.
"If I never met [Kessinger] would I have ever thought our relationship was bad? Probably
not [...] I never thought I would have strayed away from [Shanann]."
Many people have watched the Netflix documentary, American Murder: The Family Next Door, which
pieces together all the events leading up to the crimes And it would seem that one eagle-eyed
viewer of the documentary believed that they'd spotted something strange in the background
of one video clip. According to the Daily Mail,
"Footage from a police officer's body camera has been getting attention because it appears
to show a little girl playing inside the Watts' home after Chris' wife and daughters were
reported missing."
As reported by the site, Arthur Cant took to YouTube to suggest that he'd spotted a
ghost in the bodycam footage, and asked viewers to consider whether it was an apparition of
one of Chris' murdered daughters. However, other viewers reportedly suggested that, rather
than a ghost, the young girl was simply the daughter of Shanann's friend, Nichol Atkinson,
who alerted police when Shanann missed a doctor's appointment and failed to reply to any text
messages or phone calls that morning. Atkinson joined police in the house in the search for
Shanann, and it seems likely that her children could have been present, too. However, as
the Daily Mail reported,
"Despite the logical explanation, a few people insisted that the home is haunted."